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Touring the sports world, here and there …

When Steve Nash is back in the lineup for the Lakers, it still will take a few games for the team to coalesce. Or maybe that won't happen all season. The thinking here remains the pieces that are Kobe Bryant, Pau Gasol, Dwight Howard and Nash won't snap together.

It is difficult to picture Bryant as a patient, waiting guy on the wing watching Nash orchestrate the offense. Bryant likes to be the guy in charge, and he won't be in the guy in charge once Nash returns to the floor.

One thing for certain is the Lakers will not do what the Clippers did Monday in an 88-76 victory in Detroit — have no player with more than 15 points but have five in double-figure scoring.

A team that is deep enough in its bullpen to trade away a great closer might be able to do so with the Angels and get Mark Trumbo. The Angels, of course, would prefer inserting Vernon Wells in such a swap. Or Kendrys Morales, or Peter Bourjos.

Josh Hamilton has more career at-bats at Angel Stadium than at any other ballpark except for, of course, Rangers Ballpark. Hamilton's lifetime batting average is .315 at Rangers Ballpark, where he hits a home run every 16 at bats. His lifetime average at Angel Stadium is .260, where he has homered every 30 at-bats.

Angel Stadium, with that high wall in right field and in right-center, is not a friendly yard for left-handed hitters. Hamilton might lead the American League in doubles in 2013, but won't be in the top three in home runs. His RBIs should remain plentiful.

Who would be the better No. 2 hitter for the Angels, Erick Aybar or Howie Kendrick? Looks like either one could do the job just fine.

The Cincinnati Reds in 2007 traded Hamilton to Texas for pitchers Danny Herrera and Edinson Volquez. Herrera did not pitch in the majors last year, and is 5-8 lifetime. Volquez was 17-6 for the Reds in '08, 13-12 over the following three seasons, and was 11-11 with the Padres this past season.

Yahoo sports columnist Jeff Passan wrote that the Angels' signing of Josh Hamilton pushed the Angels-Texas Rangers rivalry to a new level. Among Angels fans, any rivalry with the Rangers is tepid at best. To Angels fans, the biggest rivalries are with the Yankees and Red Sox, mostly because of Yankees and Red Sox fans' “we're taking over your stadium” mentality.

An Angels-Dodgers rivalry would be the biggest of all, if MLB had the sense to put the teams in the same division. If you're going to have interleague play, go all out.

Hall of Fame baseball writer and Yorba Linda resident Ross Newhan still is filing columns. You can find him at newhanonbaseball.blogspot.com.

Two NFL players who should go on a commiserating fishing trip together because they have a lot in common are quarterbacks Mark Sanchez of the New York Jets and Philip Rivers of the Chargers. They could share stories about their teams' failing and flailing front-office leadership, bad offensive lines and below-average talent at the running back and receiver positions. They can start organizing their tackle boxes now, because both will be free of football responsibilities in two weeks.

It's Chargers at Jets this Sunday. That originally was to be NBC's Sunday Night telecast, but the NFL's flex scheduling for the final seven weeks of the season allows for changes so the networks get the most attractive games. Chargers vs. Jets, two non-playoff teams, sure is not attractive.

The Chargers conclude with a Dec. 30 home game against another non-playoff team, the Raiders. Historically, that's an attractive game to bail bondsmen.

Raiders-Chargers will sell out in time to lift the local TV blackout; a Ticketmaster check showed that only top deck seats behind the end zone were available Tuesday.

The Chargers' 31-7 loss to Carolina this past Sunday was San Diego's third home game in a row and fourth in seven games to be blacked out locally. Somewhere in the Chargers' front office somebody is saying, “We would be selling out home games if we had a new stadium that enabled us to double our ticket prices.”

Syracuse men's basketball coach Jim Boeheim, who got career victory No. 900 on Monday, said one of the reasons he was a tad nervous before Monday's game was that the player he called the school's best-ever, Dave Bing, was in attendance. Bing, now the mayor of Detroit, was a quick-and-slick player on some bad Pistons teams in the late 1960s, and some Detroit teams that rose to average the following decade when Bob Lanier was added.

On Monday, Tampa Bay Rays minor league outfielder Cody Rogers was suspended 50 games for refusing to take a drug test, and Washington Redskins offensive lineman Jordan Black was suspended four games failing a drug test. So, in baseball the penalty for refusing to take the test was a suspension of 30 percent of the season and in football failing the test brought a suspension for 25 percent of the season.

To everyone disappointed that USC is not playing in a New Year's Day football bowl game, there is a way to look at it as a New Year's Day bowl game when the Trojans play in the Sun Bowl on Dec. 31 in El Paso, Texas. When USC-Georgia Tech kicks off at 1 p.m. local time in El Paso, it will actually, technically, be New Year's Day morning in Shanghai and Tokyo!

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